Sunday, 20 November 2016

Having covered the origins of the cuttings at Vassar College from a Missal of Pope Leo X, from their creation to their dismemberment and auction in the 1838 Ottley auction, in a series of previous posts, it may be worth pursuing their provenance into more recent times.

Wednesday, 16 November 2016

Two years ago, almost to the day, I wrote a post about a cutting from the same Pope Leo X manuscript as the two cuttings at Vassar College. At that time, I only knew of it from a photograph taken in 1993, and did not know its whereabouts.

A couple of months ago I recognised it in a box of leaves and cuttings that had just arrived at Christie's and had not yet been catalogued. It has now been put online here as part of their December "Online Only" sale.

We now have access to images of both the front and back, but the I have been unable to identify the text on the back.

High-resolution images (though rather pale; the images above have been adjusted) are on the Christie's website here (front) and here (back).

Saturday, 12 November 2016

When I originally started this blog it was my intention to post every week, even if it was simply to note the existence of a useful title in Google Books, e.g. here. Due to pressure of work I have not blogged for the past few weeks, and will probably only be able to write short blog posts in the coming few months.